


Red Camellias

by Felled_and_Fallen



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-15 12:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13031574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felled_and_Fallen/pseuds/Felled_and_Fallen
Summary: I wasn't a sentimental woman, so I never asked about his comings and goings. For one thing, sentiment never lasted long in my profession. For another, I knew better than to involve myself in the dealings of dangerous men.But for whatever reason, I could never turn him away.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: I was originally going to have all the chapters in drabbles but it made the story feel too chopped up.

 

The circumstances of our meeting were strange.

The Rising Phoenix occupied a small corner of the red light district and, like many establishments in the Land of Hot Water, a significant portion of its clientele was made up of tourists.

That night, there was a drizzle of rain and while some customers were lured in with the promise of shelter and warm bodied entertainment, business was slow. The younger girls, the ones who still believed they could build a reputation and live in glory, had snapped up all the new clients. I was happy to leave them to it.

I remembered looking out the window and dreaming idly of my warm bed when I heard the sound of glass breaking. Glancing down from the top of the stairs, I saw one of the server girls cowering before a large, blue-skinned man. I froze momentarily before noticing the man was sporting a Hidden Mist headband. Looking closer, I also realized he had a companion next to him. The two wore matching dark robes and screamed trouble. Cursing inwardly, I started hurrying down the steps.

“I-I’m so sorry sirs-” the girl said, hurriedly trying to pick up the broken shards.

The man bared a toothy smile. “No harm done.”

I stepped between them with a smile of my own, one so well practiced it held up under my fear. “Yes, do forgive her. She’s still quite inexperienced.” I gave her a quick glance and was relieved when the girl took the hint and scrambled away. Turning back towards the two ninjas I said, “I’m sure we can find someone else to serve you two gentlemen.”

The blue man gave me a slow once over. “You’ll do.” His grin would almost look friendly if his teeth didn't look as if they were filed to flesh tearing points. “What’s your name?”

“Tsubaki,” I answered, even as my stomach dropped.

Jerking his thumb at me, he asked his partner, “What do you think Itachi?”

I found myself under a cold, red-eyed gaze and shivered. I had thought he was the least threatening of the two but those terrifying eyes made me want to reconsider.

“Hn,” was all the man said.

The madame sent me and Tomoe, another senior courtesan, to entertain them in the White Chrysanthemum room. I was glad it was Tomoe who was chosen. She had a steady personality and knew how to read the atmosphere. Even when the shark man, Kisame, drew near she did nothing more than smile placidly and continue plucking at the strings of her shamisen. Kisame appeared bewitched enough by the skillful movements of her delicate fingers. That left the other, Itachi, to me.

Where Tomoe could hide behind her instrument, I could only dance.

When Tomoe played fast and lively, I did quick twirls, making graceful arcs in the air with my colorful sleeves and sprightly leaps with my feet. Kisame clapped uproariously, praising us with a booming voice but Itachi only calmly ate his wagashi. It irked me, that my performance would come second to a platter of sweets, so when Tomoe started plucking the beginnings of a tender, melancholy melody I put all my effort into it.

Moving slowly, as if each agonizing step was the beginning of the end, I raised my hand towards the moon before hiding my face in the shadows of my sleeve. At a change in the chords, I turned away from them and pulled a fan from my obi. Turning back, I raised my fan in the air and performed the Dance of Fallen Leaves.

This dance was about a lonesome girl trying to catch the leaves as the forest draws itself closer and closer around her. She reaches out her hand again and again only to realize everything slips through her fingers. Heartbroken, she falls to the ground in despair.

As Tomoe finished the last plaintive notes of her song, I dropped to the ground, my back bending into one long curve with one arm still raised. My fan was inches from Itachi’s face.

The spark of emotion in those eyes was quickly shuttered away, but I took it as victory.

When the song and dance part of the evening was over we had to get to the main event. Kisame almost threw Tomoe over the shoulder, he was so eager. I was worried for her but Tomoe seemed more than amenable to the challenge, and I had a dangerous ninja of my own to deal with.

But Itachi was a much...kinder lover than I'd expected.

He refused to kiss me but his dogged determination to hit every one of my erogenous zones made it hard for me to fault him for it. He took his time, more time than most clients ever bothered, so when he was about to bring me to completion again, I stopped him with a hand against his cheek. Pulling him down so we were chest to chest, I reached between us to teach him that taking could be a mutually pleasurable endeavor.

When we were spent, he wiped himself down with the towels and hot water provided. I watched him from the bed as he dressed.

He dipped a fresh towel into the water and wrung it out before walking back to where I lay sweaty and boneless. “Turn over,” he told me.

I blinked before dutifully turning onto my front.

His hands were gentle as they wiped down my back and I hummed in pleasure. “As much as I appreciate it, aftercare isn't very necessary shinobi-san.”

“A blade must be polished.” His arm made long strokes down my legs, paying special attention to the crease where my bottom met my thighs.

I laughed despite myself. “You think I'm a blade?” My breath fell a little short when I felt the tips of his hair brush over my shoulders.

“Yes." His nose traced over my cheek. "One with a very fine edge.”

I shivered before turning my head to look him in the eyes. They were black now, dark as night. Earlier, when he was spilling his climax into my still shuddering body, his eyes had been red and spinning. “So you take care of your weapons then, like a good shinobi?” I teased.

The towel was dropped onto the floor.

I tensed. What was I thinking, joking around with him as if he was a regular customer? But I didn't have time to do more than blink before I was suddenly flipped over. I stared up into his absurdly beautiful face, as smooth and cold as stone, with my heart in my throat.

“Would you like to be the judge of that Tsubaki-san?” he said softly, lifting my chin.

I wrapped shaky fingers around his wrist. “I would love to.” Calling upon the willfulness madame always tried to train out of me, I stretched my lips into a smile. “But you should know that this blade’s edge is quite-” I dug my nails in a little, “-sharp.”

Watering brown eyes and a black abyss engaged in a brief staring contest before Itachi let me go. I was bewildered by his sudden laugh.

“It seems I have much to learn if I don't want to get cut.”

He didn't say anything else for the rest of the night. I spent hours staring at his back trying to understand the man, but when I awoke I found he was already long gone. 

 

 

  


	2. Chapter 2

 

I was surprised to learn they had paid for the whole night. I had expected them to leave immediately after the deed was done. Ninja didn't seem the type to linger or take a while to sleep it off. The fact that I was used to my customers finishing and leaving in the time it took to burn one or two incense sticks didn't say much about my ability as a courtesan.

I knew my faults well. My face was pleasant enough to look at if you disregarded the flinty eyes and too angular features (and wasn't it a shame when your client was prettier than you, I thought, remembering the ninja’s porcelain skin) but something about my manners didn't encourage much clinging from those who requested me. Madame constantly scolded me for it, but being less popular didn’t concern me.

I had long disposed of the notion that I could someday earn enough to buy my contract and the idea of playing make-believe long enough to form a relationship with a patron seemed more trouble than it was worth.  
  
In the weeks that followed, the night I spent entertaining a ninja was put to the back of my mind. Life went on, uneventful and dull, and the only times where sound and color could reach me were when I danced.

The reason Madame kept me on even though I was such a poor earner was that I was the most skilled dancer the Rising Phoenix could hope to have. When I was first sold, the Madame noticed that I learned the moves faster than the other girls and that I had a knack for more expressive dancing. She had me specialize fairly young, training me day and night to the point of collapse so that I could perform the steps in my sleep.

It was only a pity that most of our clientele didn't come to the Rising Phoenix to appreciate the art of dance.

Madame was being ambitious. She wanted to cultivate talent that could rival the famous oiran of the bigger, more prestigious pleasure houses. I was but another disappointment in a long string of failed attempts.

If I didn’t enjoy performing so much, I would be more bitter, but the pride in my skill and the sheer joy that dancing brought me meant I could perform for hours in front of the blind and the leering without losing heart.

I couldn’t say the same for the other girls. But they danced to raise their station in life and who was I to tell them how to live?

Momo was one such girl. She danced because she was absolutely useless with an instrument, tone-deaf when she sang, had no great skill with conversation, and wasn’t born with the sort of looks that would have made those faults forgivable. But she was a sweet girl, so for every step she blundered through, I made sure to cover for her with a flourishing of my wide sleeves and a bracing grip. The customers clapped obliviously and we both bowed before taking our seats.

Momo gave me a grateful smile and I patted subtly at my cheek to indicate that she was sweating through her makeup. She hurriedly fixed it as I engaged one of the customers in conversation.

“So, I heard you recently entertained a ninja?” the man asked suddenly, leaning closer in interest. “What was that like?”

“Oh yes, do tell Tsubaki-chan!” Momo butted in. “You and Tomoe have been too secretive.”

For a reason, I thought, the corner of my lip twitching in irritation. I hushed my voice. “You know I never thought ninja could be so-”

The two squeezed in closer to hear.

“-boring!” I shouted.

The two sprung back in shock at my volume and I laughed.

“Really, Tsubaki-chan!” Momo said, rubbing her ears.

The man shook his head. “That can’t possibly be true.”

“Oh, it is.” I smiled facetiously. “Ninja, as mysterious and powerful as they are, are really just like any man when it comes to bed sports.”

“And what are we like?” he said in amusement.

I poured him a cup of sake, brushing my fingers against his wrist. At his intake of breath, I hummed. “Easy to please,” I whispered in his ear.

When two incense sticks had burned away to nubs and the man’s party had left, Momo rolled her eyes at me. “Laying it on a bit thick, are we?”

We were sitting in front of a vanity in the courtesans’ common room. Our living quarters were a good deal different from the rooms we served our guests in, and for that I was thankful. No need for any overlap between the surroundings we rest in and the surroundings we serve in to make the blurring between pleasure and work any more confusing.

I rubbed away the black kohl around my eyes with a damp cloth. “It was true enough.”

“So the most interesting thing to happen to this place in years and you’re not going to tell me anything?” she whined, brushing out her hair.

“What did you expect Momo?” said a cool voice to our left.

It was Yuri, dressed in a honey colored kimono embroidered with reeds and with her blonde hair pinned back by gold and jade kanzashi. She sat down in an empty chair and started methodically removing the pins from her hair. “Tsubaki keeps all the best things to herself. Even when it would cost her nothing to share with her sisters.” The pins fell into the basket next to her with a clatter that pierced the sudden quiet.

The girl behind her picked up the basket immediately, and at a gesture from Yuri, left to put the ornaments in Yuri’s room.

I sighed. “Still ordering the younglings around, Yuri?”

“I’m training them. It’s no more than what we used to do for our elder sisters.”

Those elder sisters mentored us. You’re just taking advantage of the young and the trusting who come to you thinking you’ll teach them the key to your success, I thought, but I bit my tongue.

Yuri and I had been sold to the Red Phoenix at the same time and she’d always resented the fact that I had gotten preferential treatment at the beginning. So of course, now that she had a steady stream of loyal customers, she liked to emphasize the fact that for all my training I was no match for her golden locks and bewitching hazel eyes. Her customers were all men who liked to pretend at courtly manners and who enjoyed Yuri’s honeyed tongue and prideful attitude. It made them believe they were more high class than they were.

Momo was indignant on my behalf. “What a horrible thing to say! Tsubaki shares everything with us.” She gave me an earnest look. “I’m sure she just wants to protect her customer’s privacy.”

Yuri scoffed as she removed her coral lipstick.

My head felt heavy, more than the weight my headpieces would account for. “Momo, ninja are dangerous. I’m discreet because I have to be.”

“So you can’t say _anything_?” Momo wheedled.

Sighing, I thought back to that night. Truth be told, few of my customers were as skilled in bed as they thought they were. The art of faking pleasure in order to stroke a client’s ego was a skill all courtesans had to learn. But that man - Itachi - had stared at me with those glowing red eyes as if he could see right through my fake moans. He brought me to the brink of release over and over - to the point where I didn't even have enough breath to let out a moan, much less a fake one - and then he had pushed me over the edge with the most infuriating smile.

“I’ll tell you this much. I wouldn’t mind having him again," I said, stretching my lips into a lecherous grin that had her squealing, all the while thinking my words were actually uncomfortably close to the truth.

But really, I would probably never see that ninja again in my life.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So glad you guys have been so receptive. I get nervous writing an OC centric story. Glad people like Tsubaki. I want to make her realistic but I feel like she comes across as more jaded. What do you guys think?
> 
> Also mature sexual content is not my strong suit so any concrit would be appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

  
Winter is a strange season.

Even as food becomes scarce and the weather turns miserable, the demand for a courtesan’s company is as high as ever. Something about the cold makes people retreat inwards, craving hearth and home, but those who have neither seem to settle for a lukewarm embrace.

Kobayashi-san was one such man. Wealthy, with business interests in multiple countries, and yet here he was this snowy night drinking tea with me. Giving him a glance from underneath my lashes, I watch as he slowly rotates the teacup in his hands, brings it to his lips, and takes a sip.

I rather like Kobayashi-san. Out of all of my regulars, he was one that truly deserved the title of “gentleman.”

The other girls pitied me because they only saw his gray hair and his wrinkled hands, but I was far past the point where youth mattered to me. Why tire yourself out trying to keep up with cocky young men? I didn’t have enough stamina or patience to put up with rough, fumbling fingers from those who believed they were god’s gift to women.

Kobayashi-san only required me to be polite and to provide some intelligent conversation. He loved my dancing and he enjoyed the pleasure of skinship, but he never asked for more than I was willing to give. The fact that he even knew there was a difference between what a courtesan would provide and what a courtesan would want already made him a cut above the rest.

The observation reminds me of a more recent client… _a light hand that was as immovable as steel as it pushed me to rest on the bed… a turned cheek when I would pull his face closer to mine followed by a regretful kiss to my fingertips… my knees resting on his wide shoulders as he thrust furiously, his member hitting a spot within my swollen insides that made me see stars… once, twice, and again with a deadly accuracy… my moans turning into hiccuping breaths and then an embarrassing squeak as his fingers reached down to flick my sensitive clit…_

I drop my teacup onto the table with a clatter. At Kobayashi-san’s concerned look, I only give a feeble smile. Inwardly, I withdraw any comparison between him and my ninja client.

Where Kobayashi-san was as calming as a still lake, prone to thoughtful reflection and quiet serenity, Itachi-san was... _fire_. Smoldering embers, that when sparked into flame, would burn you alive even as you warmed yourself in its embrace.

“I wonder at your thoughts, that they would make you color so,” says Kobayashi-san. “It’s rare to see you so flustered.” He laughs in a self-deprecating manner. “I know that lovely blush isn’t for me.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” I say automatically as I try to covertly press the back of my hand against my flushed cheek.

It’s unprofessional to think of one client while in the presence of another. I may not be as enthusiastic in my work as some of my sisters but I had never been so unforgivably distracted before.

I hold my sleeve back to pour him another cup of tea but he is amused now and not so easily diverted.

“Seeing you like this reminds me that you are a young girl still,” he says, eyes crinkled at the corners with old humor.

I bristle at that. Placing the teapot back down, I retort, “Kobayashi-san, pardon me for my presumption, but if I was truly as immature as you say then you wouldn’t enjoy my company half so much.”

He laughs heartily. “Ah, but you only prove my point! Only the youth are provoked to such defensiveness.”

I know a losing battle when I see one, so I suppress my rising pique. “Then I can only thank Kobayashi-san for teaching this young one that there are still mountains beyond mountains,” I murmur with a lowered head.

Our time together ends shortly after and Kobayashi-san leaves chuckling at my sulking face.

I return to my room and stare at my face in the mirror. With my face free of rouge and powder, my brows and lips unpainted, I do seem young. But the girl in the mirror had already seen twenty two winters. By courtesan standards, I was already past my prime. Even if I managed to maintain my good looks, I would only be able to serve clients for a few more years.

And after that?

The fate of older, unpopular courtesans without any patronage in the red light district was a grim one. If they were capable and the one who owned their contract was kind, they could still be employed in some capacity – perhaps as an instructor or a hostess of some sort. The idea of a management position did have its appeal. But to pin my hopes onto such a slender spider’s thread of possibility was not in my nature.

I don’t want to go to sleep with such dark thoughts and proceed to walk back to the common area.

Tomoe is seated on one of the lounge seats and waves as I approach.

I drop gratefully into the seat beside her.

“Bad client?” she asks, her light brows drawn up in concern.

I shake my head. “Bad thoughts.”

“Ah.” She doesn't ask further but instead reaches out with cool fingers to rub at my temples.

I relax at her ministrations. This was one of Tomoe’s good points – the ability to read the mood and act accordingly in the most tactful, yet helpful way.

Precisely why she was able to charm even that Hidden Mist nin, I muse. The morning after, I had been worried at what state I would find her in and yet she greeted me none the worse for wear. Her fair skin had been marked with signs of chafing (apparently Kisame’s skin was as shark-like as he looked) and there was an angry bite on her graceful neck, but it had all healed fine. She had nothing but nice things to say about his treatment of her – though, like me, she had opted not to share very much.

We talked privately about our experiences, of course.

-

Her ninja had hailed from the Hidden Mist but didn’t seem as brutal or bloodthirsty as his village’s reputation would suggest.

“I guess he’s proof that you can’t judge a client based on their appearance,” I said.

“He was like a child,” she’d laughed, her eyes lost in some amusing memory.

I raised my brow and touched the fading bite along her neck.

“It may look terrible but I assure you he was quite gentle otherwise.” She fingered the raised edges with a smile that was almost, dare I say, fond. “I could feel the strength in his hands and yet he treated me as if I was delicate glass.” She tilted her blonde head. “Was your ninja the same?”

“He wasn’t exactly gentle during the act…” He had called me a fine blade and like a blade he had tempered me in fire. Even now, thinking of his singular focus and how his precise yet forceful actions had pushed me past what I thought I could endure, I would almost have labeled him sadistic. “But the way he took care of me after… was.”

-

Now my recent thoughts about the ninja, Itachi, prompts me to ask, “Tomoe… do you ever wonder about them?”

Tomoe’s fingers pause. She knows who I mean. She brushes my hair away from my face and pins the strands behind my ears. “There would be no point,” she says finally.

I know this as well but my analytic brain refuses to drop the subject. The different villages don't usually associate with one another. I know that much. “The Hidden Mist and the Hidden Leaf aren’t hostile per se, but I wouldn't call them friendly.”

“There was also only two of them,” Tomoe said, resignedly adding her two ryo’s worth.

“You’re right. Most ninja would have a team, right?” I’m not too clear on the matter but I’m sure most out-of-village missions would require more manpower than two ninja.

Tomoe places her hands back in her lap and stops me with a soft, “Tsubaki-chan.”

“What?”

“I’m quite sure those two were not the average shinobi…” Tomoe hesitates. “I think they were missing nin.”

I’m not familiar with the term. “Missing?”

“Ninja who abandoned their home village… or were cast out.”

“Was that why they had their village symbols slashed?” I ask, eyes widening in realization.

“Tsubaki-chan!”

I jolt back in my seat at her raised voice. Since when have I ever been so preoccupied by a customer’s background as to gossip about them? Didn't I just warn Momo about the importance of discretion not too long ago?

“Forgive me Tomoe–”

She shakes her head mutely but the regretful look in her eyes tells me that she, too, lingers over her memory of that night.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
